Laine
by lothuialeth96
Summary: Laine is a 19 year old who one day woke up from her near perfect life to find herself in Middle Earth, though in our world the books do not exist. Going from being loved by all at home to thought of as nothing more than an extra mouth to feed when she is found by the Fellowship, she is confronted with shocking changes, the ability to prove herself, and maybe even love.


Author's Note:

Hello! This is my first fan fiction, something I once swore I would never write, but I was motivated to write this one because I found that while I loved a lot of the Legomances out there I never found a "girl falling into Middle Earth" story that was believable to me. So here is what I think might happen if a modern girl who had no clue about Lord of the Rings fell into Middle Earth and found the Fellowship. I do not claim to be an expert on all things Tolkein, and I will not be including much elvish. This is a Tenth-walker, but I am attempting to make it Mary Sue-less— Laine is my original character (pronounced "Lane") and all of the rest belongs to Tolkein. Feel free to review and read at your own desire, but this fan fiction is largely for me to test my own writing skills and to see how difficult it is to not write a Mary Sue. I hope you enjoy!

Ch. 1 Laine's Arrival:

She shifted in bed as she usually did, tossed and turned around a little bit before settling once again into a comfortable position. The light of the morning pouring through her windows shone more brightly today than usual, causing the blackness seen when eyes are closed to shift to a glowing red. She begrudgingly slung her arm up to her head, shading her eyes, but when it landed she realized something was wrong. Why did her bed feel hard and lumpy? Why was there rustling when she moved? Her eyes shot open and she found her answer— Laine had gone to sleep in her own bed last night, but now she was lying on a forest floor God knows where.

The panic set in, her adrenaline began coursing through her veins and all Laine wanted to do was scream at the top of her lungs and run, but really what good would that do? Plus she was too scared out of her wits to even muster a whimper. She was frozen, a thousand possibilities and explanations flooding her mind— she was kidnapped, abducted, maybe she just sleepwalked, but no there were no woods like these where she lived, these woods seemed far too dense. She could see no sign of life around her, she couldn't even hear cars or airplanes that she could always hear near her home in the suburbs. She was completely alone.

'I need to do something' she thought, and with what little strength she could muster, she stood, her hands and legs trembling. It seemed that with gaining her control over her physical body she lost all control over her mind and logic, and with all possible scenarios escaping her Laine was gripped with terror and began running through the forest screaming.

"Help! Somebody help me! Please, help! Where am I? Someone, help!" her voice was shrill and wracked with fear and soon became hoarse with use, her eyes filled with tears that spilled down her freckled cheeks. All too soon did she realize she had no shoes on, the forest floor with its acorns and roots and sharp twigs ripped at the soft soles of her feet and she dropped to the ground. 'How is this possible, how can I— who would even— what can I do? Who's going to find me, how could this even have happened?' she thought, sobs began wracking her body, she dropped to the ground, feet in far too much pain to carry on, but kept screaming between shaking breaths, refusing to let up.

The company began unloading their sleeping packs and cooking supplies. Sam had offered to make supper for everyone once again— Sausages and some mushrooms Merry and Pippin had found a few miles back. They had walked all night, their fourth night of travel since leaving Imladris, Elrond's home Rivendell, on their quest to aid Frodo in destroying the One Ring. They traveled at night to pass undetected by any watchful eyes of the enemy, for the Black Riders had been following Frodo before his arrival at Rivendell and no doubt orcs and other fell creatures scouted these woods.

Exhausted from a long night's journey a majority of the company, save Sam, Aragorn, and Legolas, spread out upon their sleeping packs to nap before supper was ready. Aragorn offered his help to Sam who accepted graciously, asking him to cut the mushrooms up so they might be fried in the sausage drippings once they were cooked. Legolas, who was not as easily tired as the others, laughed as Aragorn tried to use his sword to chop the mushrooms. After letting the ranger struggle for a bit the prince handed him one of his twin long knives off of his back, hoping it might serve the ranger better. Aragorn reluctantly took the knife and began chopping, annoyed that Legolas found amusement in his struggles, especially while he was simply trying to help! Just as Aragorn geared up to push the elf who squatted beside him Legolas leaped to his feet and trotted away, stalling a few steps from the group with his head turned, listening.

"What is it, mellon nin, what do you hear?" a concerned Aragorn asked in hushed tones, cautious not to scare or wake any of his companions.

"A woman, she screams for help, it is very faint, however. She must be two miles away, but she is in great distress— Orcs no doubt, or any other fowl creature. We must help Aragorn, let the others sleep, orcs are no contest for us, let us run!" Legolas said, and the two took off. Aragorn handed the elf back his blade, unsheathing instead his shining sword, Anduril, the Flame of the West, reforged sword of Elendil King of Gondor. Legolas held his bow already notched with an arrow in one hand as they ran, and the two were prepared to strike down any foe with lightning speed.

They began to approach the sound of the woman, now more hoarse, choked with sobs and fainter than before. 'Odd,' Legolas thought as they sprinted, 'I hear no sign of a struggle, nor any other voices or movement of any kind. What is this terrible distress the lady screams of?'

They arrived finally to the source of the voice, springing into the small clearing back to back and ready to kill any beast in sight only to find the woman in question sitting alone on the forest floor mouth agape and staring in horror at the two men.

"Where are your attackers, my lady?" asked Aragorn, she continued to stare at them, only shaking her head no as a response. Because of her silence Aragorn and Legolas finally peeled their eyes off of their surroundings to look at her— she was a sight to behold, and not a pretty one at that. Her medium length brown hair was matted and tangled, as if she had just woken up. Her face was puffy and red, wet with tears and contorted in fear. Her body and clothes were coated in dust, dirt and leaves— speaking of clothes, what was she wearing? Her legs were completely exposed, she seemed to be in less than undergarments with nothing but a pair of scandalously short pink trousers that only covered the tops of her thighs and what appeared to be an under-tunic, strapless and white. Immediately upon noticing her clothing, or lack thereof, both Legolas and Aragorn turned their faces away, now red with embarrassment.

"Forgive me my lady, but what happened to your clothes?" asked Legolas, his voice cracked betraying his calm demeanor, never before had he seen a woman so scantily clad in public and he was so shocked he did not even have the chance to discern her race. She was likely no elf, elves are not this frantic, unless she is very young. She seemed too tall to be a dwarf, not wide enough and no facial hair as well so that couldn't be it. He finally rested on man. But what was she doing out here all alone? Perhaps she was robbed on a walk? But why so close to Imladris, there are no settlements of men in these woods…

Aragorn cleared his throat trying to excuse Legolas's rather awkward opening question to the frightened girl, pulling Legolas out of his thoughts.

"My lady, it seems you have faced a great amount of distress but please you must tell us what happened to you, it is the only way we can help," said Aragorn, kneeling down beside her after nodding to the elf to continue keeping watch. He put a hand on her shoulder and saw terror grip her, her eyes widening, so he removed the touch but pushed on with his questioning.

"Please my lady, tell us what ails you," she heard him say, she could barely move, her breath was coming in short, she felt she was going to faint. Where had these people come from? They came sprinting into the clearing dressed in ridiculous clothes with weapons drawn! And not even guns, swords and bows and arrows— who even uses those anymore? They look like some of those cosplayers that go to conventions. One of them was dressed all in dark colors, his clothes were dirty and worn and his hair, wavy, messy, and now sticking in places to his sweating face, hung around his shoulders. He was handsome, looked like he was going for a Ned Stark from Game of Thrones costume or something, she thought. The others face she didn't catch right away but she saw the figure was slender and tall and long white blond hair fell braided in parts down the persons back. Laine thought at first that this figure was a girl, they seemed too pretty, and moved to elegantly to be a man, until she heard him speak. She didn't even catch his words because she was too shocked at what she realized was his, not her, deep voice, square jaw and strong brow. His face was creamy white and his skin looked like it had been airbrushed. He was outfitted in earthy tones, greens and browns, and wore light shoes compared to his friends leather boots. He almost looked like he's trying to be Link from Zelda, she thought, though he didn't do a very accurate job with the costume.

Turning her mind from her observations Laine finally was able to process the dark haired man's speech, she realized they actually wanted to help her, and that they spoke with British accents and called her "my lady"… cosplayers get so into it sometimes. Finding her voice she finally answered, a sudden anger rearing up in her.

"Could you two please drop the act, can't you see I'm actually freaked out," she choked out between shallow breaths, "I'm not a part of your game, I don't know where I am and I don't know how I got here so could you please just stop with the old English and drop the useless prop weapons and help me out? Do either of you have a phone or a GPS or something?" she said, falling into another fit of sobs.

Legolas immediately stood on edge when she began speaking, her accent was unlike any he had ever heard— much harsher and less melodic than his or Aragorn's, but he had no idea where it was from. Her words, aside from her accent confused him… or perhaps that was their intent.

"I know not what you speak of my Lady, but these weapons are no props, and we play no game. Please, tell me who your attackers were my Lady, what happened to you?" pleaded Aragorn, equally confused by her words.

"I don't have any attackers! I just found myself here, I don't know what happened to me! I'm just trying to figu—"

"Aragorn," hissed Legolas, cutting off the girl, "Yrchs." He heard loud footfalls before he saw the orcs, their gait was all too detectable, fifteen or so it seemed surrounded the clearing. She must have been a ploy, a lure to attract their company— the orcs knew they wouldn't leave a maiden to scream and cry alone in the woods.

Aragorn sprang to his feet and held his sword at the ready, Legolas had already begun loosing arrows, sensing his targets only by the sound of the creatures feet. Laine shook her head not realizing why the two men felt the need to keep on playing their childish game pretending to fight people, that was until she heard a gurgling shriek coming from the direction the blond had fired an arrow— he had hit something, he had hit a person, he might have just killed something… More shrieks filled the woods and she screamed realizing he was intentionally hurting people, or, she tried to reassure herself, maybe his arrows didn't have points and his targets were just pretending to be hurt. Maybe it was all still a game, she hoped.

Quickly she realized how wrong that thought was— a creature with bluish grey skin, looking like a mutant or a human put through a blender and stuck back together, breached the tree line and came running towards the two men, sword drawn. She was just commending the special effects makeup job when the dark haired man stabbed the creature in the gut, blade running through its entire midriff and reemerging from its back covered in a black goo. Laine let out another blood-curdling scream, almost rivaling the howls of pain coming from the attackers. Death was happening in front of her, the two men were killing people, people were actually dying right before her eyes, bleeding and suffering and she was watching. She was sick to her stomach, her breath came in even shorter and she began to feel lightheaded. The corners of her vision were stained with inky darkness and her final sight before losing consciousness was the mans blade swiftly beheading another creature, its deformed head bouncing and rolling to a stop just in front of her feet.


End file.
